Balance is one of the hardest aspects of game development. Anyone can learn to code, make art or come up with an idea or rule set (Note: I didn't say GOOD idea, but that's a discussion for another time). But hitting the right balance of challenge and accessibility is something few games manage to find.

Then there are games that skew wildly towards one side of the difficulty spectrum. Even there, there's a fine art to finding the balance. Super Meat Boy and 'Splosion Man, as well as numerous shoot 'em ups, have managed to find a sweet spot, but Prinny 2: Dawn of Operation Panties, Dood! doesn't. It takes a few too many trips over the line separating challenge from cheap, hitting players with a double low-blow of poor level design and stifling controls.

Prinny 2 may have a few issues under the hood, but it presents well. Levels use the same 3D-into-2D arrangement found in the original. I like how this setup looks in motion. It's nothing mind-blowing, but certainly more interesting than looking at a bunch of flat sprites. Levels are populated with the typical Disgaea menagerie of demons, succubi and other oddball monsters. All are 2D sprites, most ripped straight from the original game, and add a neat visual play with the backgrounds, creating a sort of pop-up storybook effect.

Audio is typically NIS's strong suit, but something is definitely wrong here. Music is catchy and fun. The rest isn't so great. Sound effects are lifeless and the voicework is terrible. Flonne sounds like herself; everyone else either turns in a phoned-in performance (Etna) or sounds like a completely different character (Laharl).

Story is more of a rough premise than a gripping tale, but in typical NIS fashion, even the smallest of stories is, well, different.

Prinny 2: Dawn of Operation Panties, Dood! follows the same basic premise as Prinny, only instead of chasing after a dessert thief, you're going after a thief who's absconded with Etna's underwear. Again, it's more premise than story, but it's still got that particular NIS flair.

Rather than high tailing it to the Netherworld Wal-Mart for a new pair, Etna enlists the Prinnies to track down the thief, setting up the rest of the game. You're given 1000 Prinnies and charged with chasing down the thief through six multi-level stages. You can choose the order to tackle stages in, though the sequence will determine small factors like who you face as a mid-boss and difficulty. It's a small difference, though it adds some replay value if you decide to stick with the game long enough to see the changes.

How familiar you are with Disgaea will affect your enjoyment. Yes, story isn't incredibly vital to gameplay, but if you aren't familiar with the situation or characters, most, if not all, of the jokes will be completely lost on you. There's a chance you might piece something together based on shreds of dialogue, but not much. Normally, this wouldn't be a big deal, but humor is important here because it helps dull the inevitable onset of frustration that comes with going through each level.

Prinny 2 is a straightforward 2D platformer, only it takes great pride in putting you through the wringer. Levels are packed with tricky jumps, traps and unrelenting enemies. Just how hard is Prinny 2? You're awarded new moves only after you run through your first 1000. You're not expected to make it through the first time, if at all. It's makes for an interesting challenge, but if you're going to put players through an obstacle course, you need to make sure things work on your end first.

And here we are - the whole issue of balance. The game is purposefully designed to be hard, but there's a trick to making a game that is challenging, yet approachable. With Prinny 2: Dawn of Operation Panties, Dood!, there's no real learning curve and the only strategy is luck, mixed with tedious trial-and-error. You'll find that an enemy sitting at the end of big jumps and nearly unbeatable enemies will hound you throughout levels. Even trampolines cause damage if you don't hit them just right.

Levels get harder the later you play them in sequence. This is another neat idea, but the difficulty spike will likely impale most players. As much as I like hard platformers, there's a way to do them correctly. Your first instinct shouldn't be to blame the game and curse the developers' family; you should ask if there's a different way to approach the situation (again, I point you towards Super Meat Boy and 'Splosion Man). Prinny 2 doesn't allow for this. Even though there are some cool sections that absolutely work, most of the time you'll die as a result of poor control, level design or some combination of the two.

Prinny 2 offers a "Baby" Mode, which is supposed to appeal to players who don't want as hard an experience. Levels are similar to the other two modes; only blocks show up as a safety net for harder jumps. Your health is also shown as diapers instead of scarves. The blocks help, but don't address the problem of poor level design.

I like Prinny 2: Dawn of Operation Panties, Dood! and platformers enough to overlook some level design issues. If the numerous Super Mario World hacks on YouTube have proven anything, great level design is a difficult art to master. What I can't overlook are poor control mechanics, particularly in a game that demands so much of players.

Prinny had a few control issues, but they were nothing a little practice and patience couldn't overcome. Prinny 2 doesn't fix any of the original's issues, but instead makes them even worse. The worst offender is jumping. Considering 85% of gameplay is based around jumping, you'd expect this would be priority one. Aiming jumps is a pain. You have to hit jumps at just the right angle and there's no way to make slight adjustments mid-air. This is odd because the actual design seems to imply that you need to make these sorts of adjustments to reach certain areas. As much as I want to chalk this up to nostalgia, even Mario could adjust jumps mid-air in his first adventure.

Worst yet, sometimes moves won't register. Double-jumps will crap out unexpectedly, attacks will register just a second too late or butt stomps won't work. These are all small issues when taken separately, but they have a tendency to pile up at the worst possible moments. If I miss a jump because of a timing issue, I can accept the death. If it's because the controls blinked out for a second, I can't.

Prinny 2: Dawn of Operation Panties, Dood! was already aiming towards a small audience, but the difficulty is only going to slim that audience down even further. Truthfully, there will be players who jump on Prinny 2 because, "That's how games used to be!" The truth is, this isn't, "How games used to be;" those games were balanced -- Prinny 2 isn't.

As much as I wanted to enjoy what Prinny 2 offered, I couldn't. As much as I admire where NIS was trying to go with gameplay, the frustration always outweighed the fun.